HR groups contest police report on violations

http://www.risingkashmir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1108&Itemid=55

IGP says he has no information about the document

Baba Umar

Srinagar, Feb 21: The local human rights groups have contested the police report which documents only 331 custodial killings and 111 custodial disappearances since 1989, when armed rebellion broke out in the state.Newswire agency AFP reported Monday to have obtained a police document that confirms 331 custodial killings and 111 custodial deaths in the state in the past 18 years.

Khurram Parvez, coordinator Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) rubbished the police report and said that at least 9,000 to 10,000 custodial killings and 15,000 enforced disappearances had been reported since 1989.“The police figures are ambiguous. They are nowhere near figures which we have recorded in only one district of the valley,” Parvez said.

The human rights group JKCCS have recorded 337 enforced disappearances and 416 custodial killings in district Baramulla only, which includes 205 civilians, 183 militants, seven released militants, eight political activists, seven Jamaat-e-Islami members, six renegades and troops.Downplaying the police figures Parvez said, “Our figures are based on door-to-door surveys. They are reliable and recognised.”

Police officials often have claimed that most of the disappeared people have crossed over the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between Pakistan and India.Parvez said that his organisation has separate figures of such people. “We have also recorded the figures of people who crossed over to the other side of Kashmir. We don’t count them among the people disappeared in custody,” said he.

However Inspector General of Police, Shiv Murari Sahai said that police have released no such report."We have been recording custodial disappearances and custodial killings and it is our job. However I am not aware of any such police report," he said.

According to indiatogether.com, Amnesty International in 1995 documented 706 cases of custodial killings in the period between 1990 and 1994. Almost all of them were killed after gruesome torture, the Amnesty International report said. In its response to the Amnesty International, New Delhi responded to 519 out of 706 cases in an evasive manner, dismissing half of them as "encounter killings" without supporting evidence despite eyewitness reports to the contrary.